


Clear Skies of Tomorrow

by Honey_Badger001



Series: Beneath our Sky [2]
Category: Stray Kids (Band)
Genre: (he's revealed them), 0_0, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Coming of Age, District 9 AU, M/M, No Smut, TW: descriptions of violence (but not overly graphic), TW: mentioned brainwashing and mentioned self medication, bang chan and felix - centric, but i LIVE, code names, corporate dystopia, dystopian au, felix and chris really be goin thru it huh, felix has secrets, ive been dead for a while, no beta we die like men, not in my christian household, not to chris yet, rated M for dark underlying themes, slow burn?, teens getting existential, watch me bash capitalism in the form of a fic, well...to the audience
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-25
Updated: 2019-12-08
Packaged: 2020-09-26 00:02:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 18,339
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20380336
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Honey_Badger001/pseuds/Honey_Badger001
Summary: "If one of them grabs you by the hand or arm, then you just bring your elbow back like THIS, and then... twist!"Chris smiled fondly at the sight of Felix instructing their youngest member, Jeongin, in how to fight off an attacker for the umpteenth time, twisting and shoving the giggling teen around on what used to be an asphalt road but was now nothing more than dust and weeds, the sun beaming down mercilessly.He stretched his limbs out on the ground. It's been a year since they all escaped to District 9, but he still couldn't seem to get enough of the sun, the wind, the rain, the smell of dirt, and all those other things he had missed out on for so long.The peace, however, was short lived as the trio heard Hyunjin approaching.Eyes wide and sweating from the run, and without stopping to catch his breath, their lookout shouted for them to hurry back into the factory:"Search party! At the old warehouse!" he panted. "Five men, three hounds!"





	1. Declaration of War

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, all new and old readers!
> 
> If you're new here, then please check out the first fic of this series, titled "Unrelenting Sunrise" before continuing with this one, because this is a sequel and won't make much sense without reading Unrelenting Sunrise first.
> 
> For all returning readers, thank you for sticking by me and looking out for my fics, I appreciate it so much! It took me a WHILE to organize my plot and what I wanted to do with it exactly. Also, i've now put this into a series, so it's all easier to keep track of!

Lion Mall Square was always very busy on Saturdays. It was one of the largest shopping districts in LIONS INC, and bristled with people rushing about carrying bags containing any and every product under the LIONS INC. sun. Located in District 0 Section 2, its crowds were a perfect chimera of the rich, richer, and richest; LIONS INC. employees from District 1, 3, 4, and Sections 1 through 5 of District 2, came here looking for products they could afford to spend on once in a while, and shoppers from District 0 could be seen entering the more high-end stores. 

Needless to say, Lion Mall Square swarmed with the general populace seeking to spend, spend, spend: Gargantuan skyscrapers framed the wide open plaza, with offices built on top of shops and malls and arcades and in-door adventure simulation parks; countless billboards lined the building faces, bombarding shoppers with ads for the newest electronics, best products, and whatever may be the next big thing. Beautiful models graced the eyes of onlookers, advertising their bodies as much as their product, and music played over seemingly invisible speakers mounted at every corner. Artificial flavors and smells floated across the square, calculated to lure passers-by into one of the many food courts and restaurants.

The tidal wave had not reached these people yet. 

There were murmurs, rumors, whispers, of course, but they were nothing but a soft sigh in the wind. Given the voluntary isolation its inhabitants had proudly surrounded themselves in, it was only natural that District 0 had not yet caught word of the new sentiments blooming in the lower classes. 

This isolation was due to a carefully constructed balance between corporation and employee: Those with big shares in the corporation, those with influence, those with money; they surrounded themselves in a bubble of wealth, affluence, and privilege, and LIONS INC. was happy to provide. It was, after all, an almost entirely self-sufficient corporate entity, like any of the other self respecting corporations that littered the world in this day and age. The PR department kept a tight lid on any and all ‘accidents’ that occurred within LIONS INC., and the advertising team made sure that all LIONS INC. employees were well-supplied with a plethora of financially unachievable dreams. 

But today was the day that it changed. Like a tsunami they crashed into the homes of the rich, into the eyes and ears of those unsatisfied with their life, into the mind of those fearing change, into the very heart of LIONS INC. They did not intend to inform, and it was not a call to action. 

At precisely 16:00 on this very Saturday, LIONS INC. was issued a declaration of war. 

At 16:00, all billboards in the Lion Mall Square turned black, catching the attention of onlookers. Unbeknownst to the crowd, every TV, every billboard, every running private screen that was receiving a satellite TV signal from LIONS INC - all were malfunctioning. LIONS INC. was bathed into temporary darkness.

After a second of confusion from the gathered shoppers that had abandoned their activities in wonder of what was happening around them, the billboards glitched to life as one.

The face of a young man was plastered across screens in LIONS INC. He was sitting on a chair, wearing a white shirt, with a head of curly black hair, and a microphone in hand. Underneath him, the screen showed what was presumably his name: _ B a n g C h a n _.

“**You know that something is different. Look around you.**”

A majority of the people in Lion Mall Square were already documenting the occurrence with the help of their private screens and cell phones, when the camera on the screen swayed to show a new person speaking, dark haired as well, with the title ‘_ L e e K n o w _’.

“**They tell you to reach for your dreams, but your dreams are Neverland, unattainable. And then they tell you it’s your fault**.”

By now, hands were stretching into the air, eerily similar to prayers, holding up their own cameras towards the next person on screen: _ H a n _.

“**You feel estranged, don’t you, because something is wrong. But what is? That is what I want to ask you.**”

The next voice to grace the screens was slightly distorted, of someone with a young, yet serious expression, the title below reading ‘_ I. N. _’.

“**Something has changed. Even if they try so hard to hide it, you can see it for yourself.**”

‘_ S e u n g m i n _’, read the next title, beneath a young man wearing a beige hat, holding a microphone, and looking into the camera as sternly as his predecessors.

“**You’re pretending that everything is fine, but you don’t even know yourself. We’ve all lost ourselves here.**”

The screens and billboards glitched and stuttered as ‘_ C h a n g b i n _’ appeared on camera, the filming equipment seemingly outdated and of low quality, but this did nothing to diminish the attention of the captivated crowd.

“**What were you thinking again? All these ads and screens have us spacing out, designed to distract us from what they don’t want us to see.**”

Already live streams were running. Those who were not watching a LIONS INC. TV program before now clicked on their friends’ social media streams just in time to watch ‘_ H y u n j i n _’ take the microphone.

“**Our naivety is childish. All those years, thinking that they have our best interests in mind.**”

All of LIONS INC. was watching as a ginger-haired young man with the title of ‘_ F e l i x _’ aimed his words at the onlookers next in a surprisingly deep voice:

“**We are not afraid of being seen. We are not afraid to look you in the eye, and to tell you that this is not the way to live.**”

By the time that a dark haired man titled ‘_ W o o j i n _’ appeared on the screens and billboards, the television offices in LIONS INC. headquarters already looked like Armageddon had broken out.

“**Maybe you knew all along, and you pretended not to. But times are changing**_. _”

And for the owners of LIONS INC., the world was indeed close to ending. Men and women in expensive suits rushed about, asking questions and yelling demands, attempting to understand how all thirty-eight corporate TV channels were breached at once. Shareholders were sweating and running their hands through their thinning, middle-aged hair, racking their brains in vain to try and understand how they could possibly stop the inevitable tide that would sweep the employees of LIONS INC. after this announcement.

‘_ B a n g C h a n _’ appeared on camera once again: 

“**We have all been brainwashed, lied to, deceived. It’s time for us to wake up and realize that the truth had been hidden away from us,** ” he pronounced as he leaned back in the chair, flanked by ‘ _ F e l i x _ ’ and ‘ _ C h a n g b i n _’, with the rest of the speakers standing in the immediate background and behind him. His last words thundered through Lion Mall Square before the billboard screens glitched back to their usual programs:

  
“ **We are Stray Kids. We have broken away from the System.**”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hiiiiii~ Welcome/Welcome back!!!
> 
> This very first chapter was inspired by the M.I.A mv, with some of what Stray Kids say in their announcement taken directly from lyrics of the song! Go watch M.I.A, I even put all of their appearances in order of how they sing their parts in the mv!


	2. Little Blue Rebel Flowers

> | **T i m e : ** 2 8 6 d a y s b e f o r e t h e d e c l a r a t i o n o f w a r 
> 
> | **L o c a t i o n : ** S o m e w h e r e o u t s i d e D i s t r i c t 8

“Look, is that a radio tower? Oh my god, I didn’t know those still _ existed _ , that thing must be _ ancient _ ! Felix, Felix come look! We should _ totally _ check it out!”

Felix was pulled towards the dubious-looking structure by an overexcited Jisung, who was practically vibrating with excitement. They were supposed to be out here and scavenging for motors and fuel, but it seemed that his partner had completely forgotten about their task, his jug swinging carelessly by his side, only filled to a quarter with gasoline. 

God dammit, they were supposed to dig through car motors, not look at stupid radio towers! The others were waiting for them, and Felix was hungry and tired. It was about five in the afternoon, with the sun still beaming down on them, its warmth stored and glimmering above the asphalt and concrete jungle that they were walking through. It hadn’t rained in days, and the sweat on his face and neck was coated in dust from the windy road. The back of his shirt was stuck to his own back, and Felix could practically _ feel _ his arms developing a sunburn. His shorts had grown too large on him and now hung low on his hips, so he could feel the gross sensation of his sweat-stained legs rubbing against each other with every step. 

He felt disgusted, he was absolutely filthy, they’ve been searching for fuel since noon, and he wanted to go home, not look at a shitty radio tower. 

“Felix, come _ look _, this thing is tiny!”

‘Like your attention span?’ Felix almost spat out loud, but restrained himself. Jisung was having fun, he shouldn’t ruin his friend’s mood because he was feeling cranky. He sighed, collected his jug of fuel, and resigned himself to being led towards the steel monstrosity.

“These things are usually pretty large,” Jisung rambled with wide eyes, “like for example, in Tokyo, they used to have a _ really _ big one.”

“I don’t know, still looks pretty big to me.”

“_ Trust me _, it’s not!” 

Fuel jugs now abandoned on the side of the road, Felix reluctantly followed Jisung into the small concrete building at the foot of the radio tower, that was still pretty large in his humble, uninformed opinion. There was no door, and the windows did not have glass in them anymore, but there was a lot of dust and a few lights dangling off the ceiling. The floor was covered in soil, and a few small blue flowers were growing in the corner, looking a little lost amongst all the cement. It was just one room, rectangular in shape, almost like a little shoebox. Off to his right, Jisung was already running his hands all over the wires and buttons that adorned an entire wall. There was a faint humming sound originating from somewhere above them.

“Just take a _ look _ at this! Oh my god, Felix, do you think it’s still functional?” Without waiting for an answer, the teen began brushing off the cobwebs and fallen plaster off the desk space, only to reveal a wooden desk vandalized with countless graffiti and notes and crosses. 

So many crosses... Felix scratched the back of his head with a sweating palm. Why were there so many crosses? It wasn’t a catholic cross, no, these looked like plus signs, with all ends of equal length. 

Felix opened his mouth to ask the question burning on his tongue, but Jisung was already enthusiastically fiddling with knobs and buttons and held up a warning finger, motioning for his partner to keep quiet. Felix snapped his mouth back shut, ever so slightly hurt at being ignored in favor of some dusty switches, but remained silent to watch the other curiously. Seconds passed, and Jisung frowned, looking around the room, before he rushed over to the other end of the desk.

“Wait, come help me lift this thing up,” he ordered the younger, who was now completely taken over by curiosity. Felix obediently lifted what looked (and felt) like an entire cabinet of files and papers, setting it to the side. The buzzing sound increased immediately.

Felix whipped around, his mind immediately assuming the worst possible outcome: drones, cars, hounds, guns, cameras and-

But it was none of these things. The sound was similar to the humming of a poorly connected LED lamp, and seemed to come from directly above them.

“Do you hear that?” Jisung asked. “Electricity.”

Felix nodded. The walls must be really poorly insulated if they could hear the electrical wires through them.

“No Felix, you don’t understand,” Jisung continued, glancing at his partner wide-eyed. “There’s _ electricity _ here, _ running electricity _, and a whole fucking lot of it!”

Oh. OH.

“Does that mean that..?”

“YES! Oh my god, Felix, oh my _ god _ , oh my _ fucking GOD _,” Jisung was jumping up and down in joy, and he could hardly control himself, eventually joining in on the celebration. They’ve got power, they’ve got fucking power!

This was better than any amount of car fuel they could have found. It had been about five months since they escaped from the Correctional Facility, and in this time they’d been trying to just survive with what they had and what they could find. They’d escaped in spring, but it was almost fall now, and the winter would be tough on them. It was already getting colder and colder every night, even if they tried their best to not acknowledge it. 

But this changed everything. Electricity meant heaters, meant lights, meant warmth. Whatever magic or miracle allowed for this to happen, Felix was incredibly grateful. The lingering feeling of doom with which he’d watched the sunsets come sooner and sooner every day now disappeared, like a stone falling off his shoulders.

Jisung was smiling brighter and warmer than the sun outside. 

“It’s not just a little bit, either. This bitch has _ power _!” he pronounced proudly. “I mean, I’m not surprised, since it’s a radio tower, but I’m still surprised that it’s running, you know? Oh, I wonder if I can still receive a signal!” He promptly began twisting and turning the buttons on the desk again. Felix was just about to remind him that they should hurry back to Chris and the others instead of wasting time here, when he was interrupted by the sudden sound of static. 

It coursed through the small room even though it was quiet, the noise grinding into the ears of the two teens present. Jisung’s smile lit up again, and he motioned for Felix to come closer, the two of them leaning closer towards the speakers on the desk in an attempt to hear better. Slowly, under the careful coaxing of Jisung’s deft fingers, words began to filter out of the speakers, hanging in the dusty afternoon air.

_ “... f o r d a i l y … c l e a r s a l l y o u … n o m o r e … L I O N S I N … f l a w l e s s s k i n … “ _

It was a commercial, Felix realized, some sort of skin product being advertised on a radio station. That meant two things: The radio tower was picking up a signal; and this signal was specifically from a LIONS INC radio station. That could be useful… if they somehow found a news channel, then they could keep an eye on what was happening, which would be beneficial. He’d been feeling a little uneasy not knowing what was going on in LIONS INC., given the complete radio silence the nine of them had confined themselves to. Until now.

“Felix, I think this used to be a radio station,” Jisung said after a few minutes. “But I don’t think it’s been too long since it was last used.”

“What?”

“I think someone’s used this before us. That’s why it’s still working, that’s why it’s connected to an electrical grid.”

Of course! Nothing else outside District 8 had any power, it was all crumbling, but somehow this room, this radio station still did. Someone must have used this location before he and Jisung came along, albeit a rather long time ago, as indicated by the peeling plaster and dirt and flowers growing inside the room. And the crosses. 

“You’re right. All the more reason to get the others,” Felix turned to his partner, and together they walked out of the building, both not quite sure about what exactly was going on, only with the feeling that they were onto something important. 

*** * * **

“It really does look like someone’s been here before,” Jeongin pronounced as he held up a pile of blankets. They’d been sent out to investigate the basement underneath the structure that Jisung and Felix found; he and Minho were currently digging through rubble and what looked like an old home, with clothes and blankets strewn around, though the old possessions had so many rips and tears and dirt-streaks on them that they were no longer usable. 

When the two came back to the old factory just in time for dinner, they had surprised everyone by describing the radio tower they found, one that allegedly still had electricity. Of course, it had been a race to get to the tower, and Jeongin himself was doubting the older two, but it turns out they were telling the truth. 

It was almost sunset by now, and Chris had told all of them to split up and get a bearing on this place, that maybe, _ hopefully _, could become their new home. The leader and Felix were investigating above ground (though Jeongin was doubtful that the two could get much actual investigating done), while Jisung, Changbin, and Hyunjin were looking into the source of the power and how they could make use of it. Seungmin and Woojin were also above ground, gone in the opposite direction of District 2 duo, and Jeongin himself was in the basement with Minho. 

There wasn’t much down here it terms of great discoveries. The ceiling had partially caved in at some point, either by force or just naturally, and a lot of what seemed like personal belongings had been buried here. Light streamed in through the holes in the ceiling, coloring the basement in a golden evening hues. There were a few boxes cluttering the corner of the basement, and plants grew in places where the light touched the floor, the same little blue flowers that they’d found above ground.

“Yeah, but it’s just rags. Not like there’s anything useful here,” Minho answered from behind him. “Hey, do you think we can use these?” He asked the younger, holding up a couple glass beakers, stained with something blue on the bottom. 

He tried smelling the beakers. They were all still intact, but there were a few shards of glass on the floor, so some must have shattered at least. The glass looked kind of cheap, not the kind that was lab-proof and able to withstand fast temperature changes without cracking, no, this was the kind of glass you’d find in a primary school laboratory. Good for doing its job, but not much more. But they could use it, sure. They’d have to wash them out properly, of course, since he wasn’t sure what the beakers originally contained. 

He also wasn’t picking up any smells, which was both a good and a bad thing. It was a good thing because low-grade and dangerous chemicals often gave off pretty strong smells, and no smell meant that he could at least exclude the possibility of pesky stuff like chlorine, hydrogen sulfide, methyl phosphates and other aromatic compounds being present. On the other hand, there were plenty of dangerous things that had absolutely _ no _ smell, like lead. 

“We have to wash them properly first. I don’t know what’s in them…” The blue looked strange. It wasn’t the kind of blue you’d get from anhydrous copper chlorine, his brain supplied. Maybe it was something organic? Oh god, please don’t let them have stumbled on a drug dealer’s lair! His dad dealt with cleaning chemicals and alcohols, not drugs; Jeongin was absolutely _ useless _ at most organic chemistry past the very basic level. 

Minho tucked the containers away, placing them by the door, while being careful not to touch them on the inside, as per Jeongin’s instructions. There didn’t seem to be much else in the basement, and it looked rather uninhabitable with the holes in the ceiling and the dirty floor. The two of them made their way back upstairs to report on what they’d found (absolutely nothing), when they ran into Seungmin.

“Oh, good, you guys are here. Come on, we’re all going back to our old lair.”

Essentially, as Jeongin gathered from the rambles of Felix and the snarky bickering between Hyunjin and Jisung as the nine of them walked back towards the old factory complex that had housed them these last five months following their escape, Jisung, Hyunjin, and Changbin had found a way to connect the power from the radio tower to the grid of the house and surrounding, making a few sockets work. Felix and Chris had also found what looked like a kitchen and living room, with an oven and a refrigerator that they still had to test out, but which seemed like they could function. Woojin and Seungmin had found a number of power tools, including some welding equipment and more cans of spray paint.

He himself made sure to mention to their leader that he and Minho had found some glass beakers with unknown stuff inside, and that the basement’s roof was destroyed to a point where the space was no longer inhabitable. Jeongin felt a little disappointed with himself. Out of all of them, he and Minho seemed to have made the least amount of discoveries about the radio station, and while he was aware that this was not a competition, and that in the end it didn’t _ matter _ that they found nothing, he couldn’t help but feel a little behind.

The plan, as they discussed over dinner, was to move their base over to the radio tower, to the place with electricity, which was especially important given how soon autumn and winter would come. Another issue raised was food; they’d raided everything within a ten mile radius and further, and while they were well-supplied for the next few weeks, they were still nine growing young adults, working hard every day, and ate a lot. It gave Jeongin pause to think, but he found that, as he laid down for the night on his pile of blankets between Hyunjin and Seungmin, his thoughts drifted away from food supplies and towards something very different.

Who had lived in the radio station before? What were they like, why did they live outside of LIONS INC., and why were they gone?

His mind swirled with scenarios, with guesses that maybe these people were much like _ them _ , escapees from an unjust system and a hollow future… It made him feel a little less lonely, the thought that maybe he wasn’t the only one who was _like this_. Sure, he had eight people around him at every hour of the day, but he could not shake the feeling of loneliness that came over him every once in a while. District 9 was large and concrete and vast and _ empty _, so empty that his heart twinged a little every time he looked at the horizon. They -Stray Kids, as Chris had taken to calling them- were a bubble of liveliness in an ocean of empty, in a desert of silence and concrete, and Jeongin did not like it. 

Some of them enjoyed this, he knew. Minho was basking in the newly found freedom bestowed upon him, Chanbin and Hyunjin looked as if they felt right at home amidst the concrete ruins, nothing could dampen the glow that Jisung’s very _ being _seemed to be made out of, and Chris and Felix also looked like they were enjoying how free they could be, often disappearing for hours to go on walks and to explore. (Good for them, Jeongin thought.) But not all of them were entirely happy: Seungmin looked slightly uncomfortable, as if unsure of what to do with himself most of the time, Jeongin felt lonely, and Woojin never said anything or complained, but the youngest could sense that his mind was somewhere else.

Eyes slowly closing, Jeongin’s last thoughts before sleep claimed him for the night were once again of the radio tower. Why had the previous occupants left? His stomach clenched at the thought, knowing that the answer probably wasn’t pleasant.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ¯\\_( ಠ_ಠ)_/¯
> 
> WHERE HAVE I BEEN???  
.  
.  
.  
.  
.  
Answer: bing-watching the untamed (all 50 episodes lol) and subsequently violently sobbing. I have still not recovered emotionally.
> 
> Whatever. Here, have some fanfic!
> 
> I apologize for all the chemistry stuff in jeongin's pov, i'm a total chemistry nerd, i had to.  
Also I will probably at some point include one of the chris-felix talks that he describes.  
And the previous owners of the radio station. That's also a mystery.


	3. What really happened at the Shining Hotel

> | **T i m e **: 6 4 1 d a y s b e f o r e t h e d e c l a r a t i o n o f w a r 
> 
> | **L o c a t i o n **: S h i n i n g H o t e l , S M I n d u s t r i e s 

YL2900DE surveyed the hotel lobby. Guests were mingling and chatting, sipping from crystal clear champagne glasses, getting lost in a sea of designer suits, diamond necklaces, self-importance, and influence. He wasn’t new to this world, but he was a fresh enough face to intrigue. 

“You all set?” the woman by his side asked, and he smiled. He liked her; Momo was only a little older than him, but she’d been in the business longer and had more hands-on experience, unlike himself, who still felt a little nervous despite all the mental preparation he’d undergone at the Academy. Detaching himself from the arm of his mentor figure, he gave her a reassuring nod, and began walking towards the bar, while Momo herself vanished into the elite crowd around them. 

He took a seat at the bar. YL2900DE was nineteen, as his wrist ID proclaimed, and was allowed to drink. Nevertheless, he was not going to risk getting inebriated during such an important occasion. From the bartender he ordered a Margarita, and took a sip of the white liquid inside, confirming both that the drink did not contain alcohol and that thus the bartender was indeed one of their own. 

Nursing his drink in one hand, YL2900 leaned back and glanced around the crowd. It was the typical sort of high-class mingling event that one would expect: The Inter-corporate Conference had just ended, with the main heads and representatives of LIONS INC, SM Industries, Station 3 Communications, and YG Electronics spending their time before the dinner relaxing with a drink. As soon as the Conference ended, the representatives’ family members and other prominent families streamed into the hotel, eager to show their face and their value, hoping to better business relations and establish new connections, flocking to wealth and recognition like sharks smelling blood. 

He adjusted the sleeve of his tux and the sheer white shirt underneath it, scratching the healing ID tattoo on his left wrist with an absent-minded right hand. This was the third time that he’d had his wrist ID redone, and while he could get used to the slight pain that it caused he could never get used to the healing process. 

If he'd seen himself in a mirror he would have had trouble recognizing his own body; his hair was bleached and dyed a fiery orange, his face was contoured beyond recognition, his freckles covered up, and his eyes accentuated by eyeliner, mascara, and smokey eyeshadow. In the true fashion of LIONS INC youth he was also wearing contact lenses in a bright, garish yellow that was ever so slightly uncomfortable. It was a look created to draw in the eyes of other prominent youths, practiced and honed to perfection. YL2900 looked ethereal as he took in the scene of the hotel. 

YL2900 turned around in his chair as he heard commotion on his right, just to see a man in a dark green suit slide into the seat next to his. He was somewhere between thirty and forty, with admittedly handsome features framed by salt and pepper hair, and minimal makeup highlighting the angle of his jaw and the high cut of his cheeks. He would probably do. 

The entire evening YL2900 had been approached and talked to, but never by someone who mattered, not by the people he wanted to talk to. By now, he was understandably frustrated and determined to get answers out of at least one person. This was his chance. He’d sat through the buffet dinner, flanked by Momo and an older woman who was much more interested in the man to her left than him, neither saying nor eating much. Now that everyone was slowly becoming more and more drunk on champagne, wine, and atmosphere, YL2900 had to snag someone, and quick. 

“Hello,” he greeted, the mask of an innocent smile slipping onto his features with practiced ease.

“I’ve never seen you at one of these before.”

“Oh, it’s my first time at an inter-corporate dinner!” he chirped. Then, laden with worried embarrassment: “Is... Is it obvious?” The man smiled. 

“Only a little bit,” he assured the younger, “let me buy you something to relax, hm?”

“I don’t really let strangers buy me drinks, even if they’re as well-dressed as you are.”

“Then let’s no longer be strangers. I’m Kim Jaemin, SM Industries, head of Financial Management.”

_ Jackpot _.

“I’m Yongbok!”

“Nice to meet you, Yongbok. Now how about I buy you a drink?”

You creepy fuck, YL2900 thought.

“Sure!” he answered, cranking up the charm, and getting up from his seat to lead the older towards the same bar where he’d started this night.

* * *

Felix booked it out of the hotel room as fast as his feet could carry him. He’d taken off his contacts in the elevator down, and he’d only managed to grab his jacket before he stormed out through the lobby.

Fuck.

Something about the man in the green tie was weird. At first he’d thought the Financial Manager was more of the same type that Felix was used to working with; creepy, handsy loners with a lot of power but few people to share it with. But Jaemin was different. Something about the way he’d looked at him, about the searching spark in his eyes... 

The tipsy guests in the hotel lobby stumbled to the side and yelled out in protest as Felix darted past them and out the main entrance, his head screaming with a thousand thoughts. He couldn’t do it. In the end, he just wasn’t strong enough. 

Fuck. Momo would have done it. Momo, she was strong, she would have managed to charm the man and get important information from him. She would have been strong. 

But Felix was weak. He had broken. He’d fucked up royally, and now he had a problem. No one asked questions when the gentleman in the green suit escorted the fresh faced youth to his hotel room; they all minded their own business, at most sparing the two a glance and thinking that this was just another young man making his first mistake. But now, now there would be _ talk_. There would be talk and gossip and rumour about Kim Jaemin and that young man who ran out of his room. Felix was screwed.

He could have taken the window. He could have sent Momo a signal, have her call him, have an excuse ready to get him out of here... No one was expecting him to actually sleep with anyone for information. There were a million and one ways to make himself scarce, but Felix, like an idiot, had chosen the worst one: He’d made a scene. He’d jeopardized the mission. 

Whatever. He had to live in the here and now, had to keep his head cool, had to focus on his actions. First, he had to escape; Kim had probably already sent someone after him, was probably suspecting that the young man posing as a dancer had been eager to hear him talk about himself not out of childish infatuation, but out of an ulterior motive. 

It was raining outside, he noticed, as he burst through the doors. The hotel guests in his wake were left to scatter like drunk cockroaches, shouting and gawking at the teen that had bolted through the masses. He had ten minutes, maybe twelve, before Kim and his goons got their bearings and formulated a proper plan of attack. He had to make himself scarce. There was a meeting point, about a mile from the hotel, where a car was waiting for him in the case of an emergency - or a botched mission. He could get there; Felix had memorized the entire layout of SM Industries’ inner District in preparation for this mission; he knew his way around. 

It had taken three weeks for him and Momo to get ready for this conference. Felix took a little longer, since it was his first big mission, and he didn’t have the experience that his seniors did. That’s three weeks of memorizing maps, security codes, camera positions, big corporate names, and behaviour training. Three weeks of becoming Lee Yongbok. Of course, Felix had been Yongbok before, but never on this level. He had to suppress his District 2 accent, for one.

Lee Yongbok was a dancing prodigy from District 1, hoping to make it big in the entertainment branch. He was nineteen, and a trainee at LIONS INC. alongside three others. This was his first inter-corporate conference, and he was attending because he hoped to make connections with a few important people. He was here with his older sister, Michelle, but they’d split up early this evening so she could talk to her boyfriend. Lee Yongbok was nervous, because the evening hadn’t been going very well, but _ now that I’ve met you it got a lot better! _

He shook his head. The mission was over and done with, and there was no need for Yongbok any longer, not for the next three months or so. For better or for worse, he was Felix now. As his heart pounded in his chest and his feet carried him away from the hotel and into the night, it felt as if the character of Yongbok slid off of him in a slimy, awkward mass; like sludge down the back of his neck, causing him to shiver in disgust. Yongbok wasn’t a mask, no, he was much more than that. He was _ Felix _, just as much as Felix was Yongbok. He was another facet of Felix’s personality, meant to aid him in doing his job, even if sometimes Felix felt as if the two of them were perpetually locked in some kind of mental Mexican standoff. 

He and Yongbok went way back. When three men in suits showed up at Felix’s door, claiming that the Lee son was some kind of prodigy and would receive training in the inner District of LIONS INC., and Felix was given fifteen minutes to pack his things and say goodbye to his parents, Yongbok was there. When Felix was pushed into his first class, lonely and scared, one amongst twenty other equally lonely and scared fourteen year-olds, Yongbok was there. When Felix was taught to wield a gun; when he was taught to lie his way through a lie detector test; every time he fell down, beaten and bruised in the result of a physical combat lesson, every time, Yongbok was there. Lurking. 

Perhaps Yongbok had always been there, hiding in his mind, he just hadn’t found a name for the creature yet… for the creature that Felix could become. The persona that helped him rise to the top of his class, that helped him defeat his opponents and outcompete his classmates, that allowed his spirit to remain relatively unbroken while his skin bruised and his bones ached with unrelenting tiredness. 

God, he hated him. Felix hated Yongbok with a passion, but he couldn’t _ do _ anything about him. Yongbok came in handy during missions and in times when Felix simply couldn’t _ deal _ with the situation at hand, and without Yongbok he had nothing - no job, no future, no livelihood, no friends… nobody. He’d known for a long time now that he will probably never see his parents again, or even his old friends and extended family. He’ll probably never get to visit his home in District 2 anymore, the shores and sunsets and beaches that he missed so much now only distant memories, pushed to the back of his head and replaced by-

A gunshot startled him out of his thoughts, and he whipped around. 

He couldn’t see them yet, but he could hear them. They weren’t particularly quiet, their shouts and yells permeating the otherwise quiet city. 

This was fine. His pursuers were far away, and he was almost at the meeting point. He could make it. He _ would _ make it, and then he would tell his boss about Kim, and then he would apologize for botching the job. 

The Financial Manager had talked a lot as he bought Yongbok drink after drink, and as the two of them inevitably continued their conversation in his private hotel room. He talked like a waterfall, spurned on by Yongbok’s eager eyes and hushed words of admiration. Kim said a lot, talked about the inner works and current issues within SM Industries seemingly without giving it a second thought. (All the while, his hawk eyes had been watching the younger. Watching and waiting.)

If Felix’s mental map of the inner District was right, he was only a block away from his destination. He only had to round a corner and then…!

Metallic jaws snapped together in a terrifying clank centimetres away from his left hand, catching on the sleeve of his tuxedo coat and ripping out a chunk. His eyes widened in fear as all thoughts of the mission left him. 

Before him, cutting of the way to the meeting point, stood a huge hound, one of the robotic ones that were employed by most hotels within SM Industries, modelled after doberman pinschers. Felix turned on his heel, almost slipping on the wet concrete as he darted into an alley in a desperate attempt to shake off the hound. 

Fuck, fuck!

There was no way out! He had to find a way around the hound, to somehow shake off his pursuers. He had to get out if he didn’t want to die. 

The shouts echoed along the streets, bouncing off of high concrete buildings and amplifying in volume, surrounding him from all sides and assaulting his ears. They were close, oh fuck, they were gaining on him, they were close they were close they were close… 

Frantically scrambling from corner to corner, he stumbled out onto one of the main roads. Where the fuck was he? It seemed as if the men were coming at him from all directions, as if at any moment a bullet would tear through his chest. He’d long lost all bearing and sense of direction, the mental map replaced by dark swirls and glinting gun barrels. 

Only once before in his relatively short career had Felix been in a situation where his life had really, truly been in danger. It had been during a drug bust in an illegal underground casino back in LIONS INC. His job, along with Jackson and three others, had been to obtain physical evidence for both the illegal gambling and illicit substances that traded hands in the casino, and they’d succeeded. When the LIONS INC. law enforcement team entered the scene, one of the men had pulled out a gun and started shooting blindly. Felix had dived under one of the tables in the nick of time, escaping any damage, though one of his co-workers ended up with a bullet in his calf. 

This was much, much more serious. Back then, back in the casino, he had not been the target, and there’d been ample cover. Now, as he ran through the streets of SM Industries in the pouring rain, he realized that there was no easy way out of this. He was the target, he was alone in a Corporation that was unfamiliar to him, there were at least two men in his pursuit, and there were hounds. His breathing sped up as Felix let out a sob of frustration, tears mingling with the raindrops sliding down his reddened cheeks. There was no way out of this, was there?

Fuck, he didn’t want to die! Not tonight, not yet, oh fuck, please, _ please _… 

The sound of his feet hitting the concrete tore through the night like gunfire.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We finally find out what Felix has been up to all this time 0_0
> 
> in case you didn't notice, this chapter is the direct prequel to chapter 2 of Unrelenting Sunrise; the last sentence here is the first sentence of chapter 2 :)
> 
> I suppose i owe you all an explanation? I'm in the process of moving to university, so the next two weeks will be somewhat hectic. I don't think I'll be able to publish more chapters as frequently. But I promise, I haven't forgotten or lost passion for this AU! Once I settle down in uni, I'll definitely be back to a regular uploading schedule!


	4. A Day Has Ended...

> |  **T i m e ** : 2 6 0 d a y s b e f o r e t h e d e c l a r a t i o n o f w a r 
> 
> |  **L o c a t i o n ** : S o m e w h e r e o u t s i d e D i s t r i c t 8

It was bright outside. Chris could hear the insects buzzing in the afternoon air and the birds chirping somewhere in the distance. The sun shone down in warm rays that tickled the bare skin of his forearms and made him feel warm and lazy. It was absolutely beautiful.

They’d finally made their last trip from the old factory to the radio tower, their new home, yesterday morning. The bus was standing in an alleyway off the main road, and the biggest room of the radio tower was cleaned and covered in blankets. The fridge he and Felix found a few days ago was cleaned and running (albeit a bit temperamental), and Changbin and Jisung were tinkering with the power circuit day and night. It was all looking very promising. 

Chris smiled as the body next to him shifted. Felix was leaning against him, nodding off in the warm afternoon sunshine that made his freckles stand out and his skin glow. They were both leaning against the western wall of the radio station’s ground floor, sitting in the dry, dirty dust with jeans that were worn beyond saving, but Chris couldn’t be happier. He was here, he was free, he was with the person he loved, with the family that they both chose… 

Felix shifted again, his wavy head of hair resting on Chris’ shoulder, prompting the older to look at his sleeping face once more, drawing his eyes from the glowing forehead to the relaxed brows, down to gently closed eyes and long lashes that fanned over freckled cheeks; further down to a faintly sunburnt nose and finally to pursed, heart-shaped lips that pouted ever so slightly in ways that made Chris’ heart do somersaults in his chest. The older reached up with his left hand to softly brush a strand of hair out of Felix’s face, marvelling for the millionth time at how soft and silky it felt, despite being damaged by the sun and lack of proper care. 

He suddenly remembered a song that he’d heard a long, long time ago, before he began working at the Correctional Facility. It was a soft song, soft but upbeat, with a melody that made Chris smile every time he thought of it. He couldn’t quite recall the exact words, but right now it felt as if this unknown melody encompassed all the different ways in which the butterflies in his stomach danced. 

Chris’ eyes slowly drifted shut, pulled down by the constant warmth of the afternoon sun and the comforting weight of Felix leaning into his side… 

He was woken up by someone gently shaking his shoulder. Reluctantly he opened his eyes (which seemed like a gargantuan effort), only to be blinded by the setting sun. Woojin’s face moved into his field of view, and Chris blinked again.

“Come, we’ve made dinner,” Woojin said with his typical curtness before standing back up and walking away, leaving Chris’ eyes at the mercy of the sun’s glare once again. 

Slowly the leader rubbed the sleep out of his eyes - an action he immediately regretted as he remembered that his hand had been lying on the dusty ground and was covered in sandy granules. Felix on his shoulder stirred, and for a moment the older was transfixed by the golden glow that the sun cast on the sleeping boy’s skin, but his grumbling stomach and the prospect of dinner soon tore him out of his daze and pushed him to slowly, gently shake Felix’s shoulder. 

He grinned when instead of waking up the younger only cuddled closer, clinging to Chris like a koala, but alas, dinner awaits! He shook Felix again, and this time it seemed to do the trick as the boy in question slowly opened his eyes and blinked into the sun with furrowed brows. 

“Wake up,” Chris whispered, “dinner’s ready.”

Felix, upon giving the older a grumpy look, decided to respond with an intelligent utterance of “Hm.” before closing his eyes again and cuddling back into Chris’ side.

“Hey,” Chris tried again, “hey, come on. Rise and shine sweetheart.”

“... No.” This time the younger didn’t even bother opening his eyes to mumble an answer. Chris’ heart did so many flips in his chest that he could have mistaken it for a circus acrobat.

“Come Lix, there’s food.”

“...Food?” Felix perked up, and Chris laughed. It came out a bit louder than he thought it would, but he knew Felix wouldn’t mind. 

“Yeah, food. Come on, you lazy ass, we’re gonna go eat, yeah?”

“Ok,” the younger responded, yawning quietly (and cutely), evidently still a little grumpy, and finally sat up. Immediately Chris missed his warmth on his shoulder where he’d slept against, feeling the draft of air across his skin and, for a moment, hating it more than anything in the world, wishing for nothing more than the return of this warmth, this safe, comforting weight. For a split second he almost yanked Felix back into his arms, but he restrained himself and instead grabbed the hand that Felix offered him, and heaved the two of them to their feet. 

He stretched, feeling the bones in his back crack at the action, a pleasant shiver going through the limbs that ached from sleeping on the hard ground for hours. At his side, Felix suppressed another yawn, looking ridiculously similar to a sleepy kitten in Chris’ eyes. He missed the warmth of the younger so much that he grabbed the freckled teen’s hand in his own as they both made their way into the radio station. The hand felt small and wonderful in his, slightly colder than his own and a little sweatier, but still absolutely perfect. It made the warm fuzzy feeling return once more, pulling his mouth into a smile that he knew would not disappear from his face for the next hour. 

When he and Felix came into the room that served as both the sleeping space and the kitchen, everyone was already seated on the pillows and blankets on the floor that surrounded two large steaming pots, filled to the brim with warm food that made his stomach grumble. His nose picked up the smell of vegetables and broth, and sure enough, it was vegetable soup! A quiet Woojin poured the soup, scrambled together from multiple cans as well as some frozen vegetables, into bowls for all of them, and to his left Seungmin handed Chris a spoon.

The warm liquid made its way down into his stomach, and the taste lingered on his tongue. It was the best meal he’d had in a while; for so long they, Stray Kids, had been left eating cold bread and canned beans. After so long, a warm meal! The soup was not especially good - different soup cans were mixed together in a slightly strange blend, it was unsalted and lacked any sort of good flavour, but in his mind, in all of their minds, nothing could compare to how good it was. They all ate without talking, filling the air with nothing but slurping and chewing noises. 

When at last they’d all finished, after a second and then a third helping, Chris grinned into the round of satisfied teenagers. 

“I guess that means you’ve made the stove work?”

Changbin and Jisung smiled proudly at the cheers they received from their friends. It had taken a lot of elbow grease, as well as a few minor burns that decorated Jisung’s arms, but they’d managed to somehow make the old electric stove work. It was a very old model - the LIONS INC. 34S Electric, which had not been in production for the past ten years - but they’d made it work. That was all that mattered, and judging by the looks on everyone’s faces, it was well worth it. 

Chris let his eyes wander over the nine of them, letting them rest on Woojin. The oldest had been unusually quiet these past few days, with a strange expression on his face most of the time, and always talking and whispering with Jeongin. He wondered if something was wrong… it had to be, if Woojin was acting like that. Since coming to District 9, Chris felt like the world had been lifted off of his shoulders, and he could tell that most of his friends, most of Stray Kids, felt just about the same; free, unworried, happy. But not everyone. He’d have to talk to the oldest, the leader decided.

Woojin’s eyes met his, and at Chris’ inquiring look the oldest gave a subtle nod towards the door, a gesture Chris knew meant that his oldest friend wanted to talk outside. Untangling himself from the blankets on the floor - and Felix - Chris heaved himself up, feeling his tired body protesting any sort of movement, and walked out of the main entrance after he reassured a confused Felix with a smile. Woojin soon followed him out.

“Alright, Wooj, what’s wrong?”

The older looked away, his eyes betraying his worry.

“... I’ve been talking to Jeongin,” he said, quietly.

“Yeah, we noticed. Care to share?” Chris crossed his arms in front of his chest. Whatever Woojin had to say, he wanted answers. His mind was already going through all the possibilities; was there tension within the group, was someone feeling unfairly treated, oh god, Woojin wasn’t thinking of going back to LIONS INC., was he? But nothing could have prepared him for the explanation that the oldest gave him after a long silence.

“Jeongin found some stuff… old notes, graffiti, symbols, plans… from whoever lived here before. Half of it was ruined by the weather, but there’s still a lot left. We’ve been doing a lot of thinking, and it all adds up. Chris, whoever lived here before, they were an organization of some kind, they had  _ plans _ , they wanted… They wanted to bring down LIONS INC.” Woojin took a deep breath and looked his leader straight in the eye.

“And I think we should too.”

*** * ***

They were all gathered in the living area, sitting in a circle, curious as to why their leader had suddenly called a meeting. Only Woojin and Jeongin exchanged meaningful glances.

“I called a meeting,” Chris started, “so that we can make a decision. Woojin just talked to me, and I think that he and Jeongin have something important to say.”

He motioned for the two to speak, and Jeongin reached under his pillow to pull out a pile of what looked like old paper loosely bound in a notebook. The pages were yellowed and torn and dirty, but the fact that it was  _ paper _ was what made the rest of the group gasp. No one had seen actual  _ paper _ in years, paper made out of wood and trees instead of the cheap plastic fibre stuff that notebooks were made out of these days. Not to mention that notebooks were rare in LIONS INC. to begin with, the corporation encouraging the use of more ‘sustainable’ (“hackable”, Chris scoffed silently) electronics instead. 

“I found this buried under some of the rubble in the back room,” their youngest started. “It belonged to whoever was living here before us… we don’t know who it was, but we know what they wanted.”

He opened a page roughly in the middle of the book, and laid it down in the circle. On the yellow pages, faint lines were visible, circling and wandering around on the page in a seemingly nonsensical manner.

“It’s a map,” Woojin elaborated.

With a careful finger, Jeongin traced one of the thicker lines on the page: “This here is the main road connecting LIONS INC. and SM Industries. I remember it from something I saw in my dad’s office once; it’s not a public road, but it’s what most transport vehicles travel on when they ship goods between the two corporations. There’s also a train track running alongside it,  _ here _ ,” he pointed to a faint dotted line. 

Woojin continued: “These people, who lived here, they wrote down every detail of goods coming in and out of LIONS INC. Not only that… they collected data on radio channels and TV broadcasting satellites. They knew about the Correctional Facilities. And more importantly: they knew how to travel between Districts.”

Everyone stilled. Travel between Districts was forbidden, something reserved only for the elite and for very certain types of workers. Unless you were born into the inner circle of District 0, you got to travel between Districts once, maybe two times in your life, and unless you have special permission in the form of a licence issued by LIONS INC, you'll be arrested within ten feet of the District gates. 

To say that the news was big would be an understatement. Nonetheless, Jeongin leaned further into the circle. 

“We found plans, and maps, and reports which indicate that, well, these people who lived in this radio station before… they wanted to bring down LIONS INC.”

Silence. Chris could physically sense the astonishment in the room, ranging from obvious -in the case of Jisung, whose mouth hung wide open- to more subtle, like Minho, whose furrowed brow and lop-sided half-grin indicated that the teen was thinking very hard about the information he’d just received. Next to him, Felix sat up straighter than before, something glinting in his honey eyes. 

“How can that be?” Hyunjin broke the silence. “I mean, how do you even plan to take down an entire  _ corporation _ ? Not to mention one you just so happen to  _ live in _ ?”

Jeongin exchanged another meaningful look with Woojin, and the older nodded. He flipped to another page in the old book; one that looked crumpled and half torn, with a faint blue spill on it.

“From what’s written in here, I think that their goal wasn’t to actually  _ bring down _ LIONS INC., but rather the people in charge. District 0 and higher-ups; they wanted to get rid of the entire elite sector. They - we think they called themselves ‘The Clan’ or something like that - they made plans to take over LIONS INC. headquarters by force. They were using the radio station to listen in on private communication channels, and Woojin and I also found that they were keeping weapons here. A lot of weapons.”

“Then where are they now?” Seungmin questioned. “Things like that don’t just disappear. Not to mention, why didn’t we hear about any of this? There should have at least been rumours in District 0 if the elite were in any real danger. But those of us  _ from _ the elite, we’ve heard nothing.”

Hyunjin scoffed at that comment, only to be silenced by a small nudge from Changbin. Chris understood them; he didn’t like it either when anyone brought up the differing backgrounds within the group. Social status and District origin had no place here, beyond the reach of LIONS INC, in District 9. But ultimately, no matter how badly it was phrased, Seungmin was right, wasn’t he?

But Felix chimed in, his voice carrying a sort of tightness in it that no one but Chris seemed to notice.

“They probably shut it down. I mean, do you really think the people who put us into fucking  _ prisons _ to get brainwashed, do you think they’d leave any trace of this Clan if they found them? The radio station is destroyed, right? That probably means that The Clan was caught. They didn’t succeed; they failed, and LIONS INC. probably covered their tracks up enough that no one suspects a thing…”

He trailed off. Chris noticed that the younger’s small hand was clenched in the blankets on the floor, betraying his anger in ways that his face did not. The only other indication of the fury brewing under Felix’s skin was the slight waver in his voice, as if his vocal chords were wound too tight and now refusing to stop shaking. What could have made the freckled teen react like that, Chris wondered, but soon found the most plausible explanation: Felix was just angry, angry and bitter at whoever put them all in the Facility, at whoever was responsible for the misery that they’d witnessed. 

Chris rose, thanking their youngest and their oldest for what they had to say, and took a deep breath. Now was the time to make the decision he’d been talking about. 

“Which leads us to the reason why I called this meeting. We all have our reasons why we escaped, but what unites us, what makes Stray Kids a family, is that we all share a hate for the life that we lived at the Facility, and for what our lives would have been like.” 

He looked around the room, saw Jisung’s wide eyes, Minho’s half-grin, Felix’s hand twisted in the blanket, Woojin’s intense stare and Jeongin’s slightly nervous fidgeting; saw Changbin’s eyes egging him on, imploring him to just go out and  _ say _ it, saw Hyunjin’s brows furrowed in question and Seungmin’s teeth digging into his lower lip. He looked down on his own hands, clasped in front of him, and Chris was sure that this was what he wanted. 

He was tired of hiding. He was tired of lying awake at night, thinking about what other Facilities must look like, about what Correctional Facility STR0325 was like after their successful escape… Chris didn’t want to think about the future in ways that only involved pondering the location of their next meal, no. When Woojin and Jeongin talked to him outside, after the meal, the thoughts that had long been brewing in the back of his mind had spilled to the forefront. He didn’t want to live in District 9 knowing that only they were free! He didn’t want to eat canned food and think about the people struggling to find anything to eat at all while the rich inhabitants of District 0 threw away enough food to feed an entire city. 

Jeongin and Woojin had been surprised when he agreed straight away, without much time to think. Sure, it was a rash and impulsive decision, one that would cost them the comfort of their hard-won home, one that would put all nine of them, the people he loved, in danger, but it was the right decision. Chris knew that. He’d known it the second he stopped Felix’s drug treatment at the Facility, all those months ago, and he’d known it the moment their bus broke through the dome barrier. The world they lived in was unfair and cruel and heartless and  _ disgusting _ , but if they could make it better somehow, for the millions of people living under LIONS INC., then any and all sacrifice would be worth it. 

“We now know there’ve been others who tried, and even though they didn’t succeed, their existence has left us with a choice. I’m not saying it’s gonna be easy; there’s a chance that we fail… But it’s the right thing to do, and we all know it is, so I’m asking that we, as Stray Kids, make a decision. To finish what they started, to stand up against LIONS INC.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OOP IM SO SORRY FOR THE LONG WAIT YOU HAD TO GO THROUGH
> 
> TRUST ME I FEEL JUST AS BAD UGH
> 
> (but i just moved to university and my classes started and i have a roommate and there is so much to DO and eugh i never have time to sit down and get in the right headspace for writing...)
> 
> anyway, have this monstrosity of a chapter, 3.2k long, to make up for my faults. it is 2:45AM, i'm slightly woozy from tiredness, but tomorrow is a Sunday, so that's ok. sweet and fluffy moment between chris and lix, hehehe.


	5. ... And a new Sun has risen, just for us

> **| T i m e : ** 2 5 8 d a y s b e f o r e t h e d e c l a r a t i o n o f w a r 
> 
> **| L o c a t i o n ** : S o m e w h e r e o u t s i d e D i s t r i c t 8

“Absolutely not.” Felix’s ears were ringing as he dragged Chris behind the ruins of a supermarket, away from the prying eyes of the rest of the group.

“And why not?” Chris argued, “We know it’s the right thing to do! After all that we’ve been through, can you really, honestly stand there and say that-”

“YES!” Felix cried. “Yes I can, precisely  _ because _ of what we’ve been through! This is reckless, careless and stupid and dangerous and-”

“And the right thing to do! Felix, no one should suffer like we did, like the people in District 2 and 5 do every day… Can’t you see that?” Chris pleaded, grabbing a hold of the younger and forcing him to look him in the eyes. “Don’t you want a better future for us?”

“Fuck off Chris! There’s not gonna BE a future for us, there’s not gonna be an  _ us _ if we do this!”

“I don’t… What do you mean?”

“We’re happy here, aren’t we? I know it’s hard finding food and a warm place to sleep, but we’re alive! We’re  _ together _ ! And if we choose to put that in danger, then…” Felix’s eyes were shining with tears and tremors were threatening to consume his voice as it got quieter and quieter with his next words:

“We could die, Chris. Don’t you get it? I could  _ lose you _ … and I’m not ready to put that at risk.” The tears that were threatening to fall did so eventually, making their way down freckled cheeks, only to be viciously wiped away by Felix’s sleeve covered hand. He didn’t want to cry right now, he didn’t, but fuck, the way Chris looked at him right now made his heart jump in all the wrong ways. 

“I don’t wanna lose you,” he whispered, “please…” 

His blood was pounding in his ears, and ugly thoughts were spinning in Felix’s head. Thoughts of blood on his hands, of the sound of gunshots, of men in suits and of metallic hounds with mechanical feet that clacked on cement. Maps flashed before his eyes, maps and codewords and plans and drills and procedures and protocols and blue flowers. 

He’d been there. The rebellion had happened ten years ago, when he was just a child and living in District 2, so obviously he had not even the slightest memory of it… but later on during his training, when he was fifteen, his boss had taken him and three other trainees down to an underground compound once. It was in the middle of District 0, guarded by men and hounds and cameras and automatic firearms, able to be unlocked only by a fingerprint and a retina scan, accessible to no more than three people in all of LIONS INC. His boss had lead them down narrow hallways meant to confuse and disorientate, until they all reached a damp and dark cell illuminated only by one light. 

Two doctors were standing in the cell, their faces obscured by masks, and holding guns. In the middle of the room was a chair, into which a body was strapped. The man in the chair was in a straightjacket, his face twisted in anger and resentment. He could have been handsome, Felix noted, if it weren’t for the bruises and the obvious signs of malnutrition that his body showed; his face was hollow, with unkept stubble growing in patches and one eye milky with blindness, and his arms were skinny, betraying that his muscles have atrophied over the years. 

“This is Jooheon,” his boss purred, “feast your eyes on him, ladies and gentlemen.” The man in the chair -Jooheon- started shaking in fruitless attempts to escape his bonds.

“Now Jooheon here,” the boss continued with fake showmanship, “he is the leader of a group that attempted a little stunt called the Blue Flower Rebellion a few years ago. Or, rather,  _ was _ the leader. They’re all dead now, of course.”

And he continued. He continued to describe in excruciating detail how the LIONC INC Special Ops team had caught The Clan in their hideout, how they’d hunted them down one by one and brought them in, how they’d kept them in facilities flush with the walls of Districts, hidden from public view and knowledge. How they’d tortured them for information over years and years.

“After all these years, you see, Jooheon has finally given us all that we need to know,” the man that Felix could barely look at anymore had continued, “and now that he’s lost his purpose, it is time for him to go.”

He’d made the trainees watch as the doctors injected the man on the table with thick needles, made them watch as Jooheon, as the rebel leader (because Felix’s mind was refusing to call him anything else, refusing to acknowledge that the person in the chair was  _ human _ ), started thrashing in his bonds, his whole body shaking and convulsing for what seemed like hours on end. Until finally, he lay still, eyes wide open and white foam at his lips.  <strike> Dead </strike> .

Felix shook his head at the unwelcome memories, but failed to banish the gruesome thoughts. They couldn’t risk doing something like that… Watching Jooheon’s death had had one purpose, and one purpose alone: To show the trainees what would happen if they were to defy or betray LIONS INC. And god fucking damn, it worked. 

“No, Felix, sweetheart, don’t say that,” Chris cooed, gathering the younger in his arms and, for a blissful moment, banishing any memory of Jooheon with his warmth. “I’m always gonna be there for you, ok? You’re not gonna lose me.”

But it was too late. Felix trembled as phantom screams buzzed in his ears, as he saw himself standing in that underground room again, cold and terrified, with his boss’ clammy hand placed on his shoulder and securing him in place… but this time the person in the chair was not beat up and bloody, not skinny from years of imprisonment, no; the face that looked up at him from the chair was Chris.

Chris was in that chair with two doctors and countless lethal injections looming over him and Felix was  _ right there _ frozen and unable to do anything as the doctors readied their giant needles and his boss smiled and leaned down and whispered ‘that’s what happens to traitors Yongbok’ and the single lightbulb flooded the room in a cold light and the Chris in his mind began to shake in convulsions that would only end when-

The younger swallowed. 

“But why, Chris? Why do we have to put ourselves in danger?” He gestured around with a hand that was already exhausted from the argument. “It’s perfect here. It’s perfect and quiet and safe, why would you want to change that?”

Chris’ arms tightened around him once more, and it was only then that Felix noticed how much he was shaking, salty tears running down his cheeks. He felt small, and cold, and really, really fucking scared… afraid of what a world without Chris would look like, afraid of going back, afraid of Yongbok. He knew, of course he knew, from the moment that Chris asked Woojin and Jeongin to present their findings, that Chris had already jumped on the idea; that Chris had made  <strike> the right choice </strike> the  _ honourable _ choice. And Felix knew, in that split second that it took him to realize what Chris was planning, that he would follow the older anywhere, regardless of how stupid the idea was or how much he hated it. 

Felix was not delusional, he knew who he was; he hadn’t forgotten. Yongbok - and by extension Felix - was a danger to the group, a liability. He knew important inside information, and LIONS INC. would do anything to get him under control… and hurt his friends in the process. If they decided to fight, he would stand out like a giant target on their backs, drawing attention to him and thus Stray Kids. They would cause more attention in LIONS INC. than The Clan ever did, because of him. Chris could die because of him, they could all die because of him.  <strike>And that scared the fucking shit out of him</strike>.

For a brief moment, he considered telling the older everything; his mouth opened as if of its own accord, he felt himself take a breath, the words were already on his tongue and almost bubbled out, but-

“I knew you’d say yes,” he said instead, “I knew from the fucking moment Woojin talked to you that you would agree…”

Why couldn’t he say it? Why couldn’t he just open his  <strike> stupid useless </strike> mouth and tell Chris the truth? That he was a danger to all of them,  <strike> that they were better off doing this thing without him </strike> that they were better off not standing up to LIONS INC. at all? He knew that Chris would never actually hurt him. The leader would be mad, sure, he would feel betrayed that such a big secret was kept from him when he himself shared everything with the younger, maybe he wouldn’t talk to Felix for a few days, but ultimately it would be alright. 

So what was Felix afraid of?  <strike> That Chris would leave him. </strike> There was nothing to be afraid of. 

He could trust Chris with his life. 

<strike> Then why was he crying? </strike>

“Why didn’t you say anything earlier, Lix? Why now, hm?” he felt rather than heard the older’s voice, humming next to his ear, the simple  _ presence _ being enough to keep his mind from spinning out of control. All of a sudden he was incredibly glad for the fact that their embrace meant he didn’t have to see Chris’ face… Felix didn’t think he’d be able to look the other in the eyes.  <strike> He wouldn’t deserve to </strike> .

“I’m scared, Chris,” came the whispered confession, sounding helpless and small, almost lost between his hiccups, his body not belonging to him anymore.  <strike> So disconnected that he almost wished for Yongbok to appear </strike> .

Chris lifted his arm from the younger’s shoulder and wiped at the tears that were streaming down Felix’s face a minute ago, and now lay heavy on his cheeks, humming softly while he went about his task, murmuring gentle “No”s and “Don’t be afraid, sweetie”s and promises that they would stay together… both of them knew that these were just empty words meant to calm the younger down, but they said nothing of it, choosing instead to let the closeness and warmth of each other take over their doubts and fears. The clothed shoulder, where Felix’s head had been, was wet with tears and snot.  <strike>Useless</strike>. He leaned back in when Chris attempted to straighten the younger’s clothes, making the leader chuckle at his antics. 

This was nice. He was here,  _ he _ was here; this was fine. It wasn’t great, it was hard and difficult and scary as  _ fuck _ , but somehow it was perfect. Despite the stress of the future looming over Felix’s shoulder, for a moment that seemed like a lifetime, this was perfect. They were perfect. If Chris wanted to run out into open gunfire, fine. If Chris wanted to rattle at the foundations of the world, if Chris wanted to take over the government, fine. Felix would follow. It would be worth it; everything was worth this. 

Fuck everything else.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Teeny tiny chapter! But I updated soon after my last chapter, so don't look at me like that!!
> 
> This one's only 1.9k, and I thought about expanding it / adding another perspective... but I dealt with so much emotion in this chapter, I feel like adding another perspective would kinda take away from the impact. 
> 
> So yeah. Angst. (^-^)/¯***  
i have exactly zero (0) regrets. Please continue reading this fic, omg, i LIVE off of comments and praise


	6. Signal

> **| T i m e . : 2 4 5 d a y s b e f o r e t h e d e c l a r a t i o n o f w a r **
> 
> **| L o c a t i o n : s o m e w h e r e o u t s i d e D i s t r i c t 8**

They were all gathered inside, crowded around the switchboard of the radio station. It had taken them nearly two weeks of relentless searching and working to find all the necessary bits and pieces to make the system work, and Woojin could not be prouder of Changbin and Jisung for the incredible job they’d done. Hyunjin also played no small part, tinkering with the system late at night to figure out how to tune into and overtake different radio programs, with Minho hovering close-by and offering advice. In fact, this was a group effort! Without Jeongin and Felix’s quick runs for material, Seungmin’s scouting, and Chris’ planning... they would not have come this far. Stray Kids would have stayed an inactive dream.

They were all gathered inside, awaiting the moment with beating hearts and bated breaths, the moment when Jisung would give the signal and Chris would speak the words of their first ever broadcast into the microphone. Woojin had helped him come up with the words, and after days of agonizing they’d decided on the message: “Your life does not have to be like this. We are Stray Kids. We are here to help.” It was embarrassingly simple, but he hoped that it would be effective. The key, Woojin thought, was to repeat the message often enough, to as many people as possible. 

They had to establish themselves without attracting the attention of LIONS INC. officials. That’s what The Clan had done wrong - they weren’t thinking big enough. If Stray Kids were going to riot, then they needed public support. They needed more than just the nine of them.

Everyone else was inside, but Woojin chose to distance himself from the action. Don’t get him wrong; he was definitely, one hundred percent in favour of this plan! He just needed a moment, he thought. The past year had been insane... like a fevered nightmare. Or maybe it was more comparable to a divine vision? He wasn’t quite sure yet.

When Woojin was thirteen years old, he first heard about the Facilities. Growing up in District 3, life was idyllic and easy, if not somewhat boring. It was picturesque in its own sense: the rolling green fields and the large farming complexes sprawled out amongst them, with three families sharing each complex. 

You get up before dawn, you take care of the animals, you eat breakfast. You make the long trip to school on bicycles the state provided you with. You come home, you work on the farm, do what needs doing, you eat dinner, you go to bed. You get up before dawn... It was the same cycle every day. Woojin realized from the accounts he heard from Chris and later from Changbin and Hyunjin and Felix, that his life had been good in comparison to that of many others in much poorer Districts than his. It was something he’d always known instinctively, but hadn’t confirmed before he left his home. 

That in itself was a miracle. School education in District 3 was minimal and rarely not agriculture-related; they weren’t really meant to leave... you were meant to stay and farm for your entire life. You were meant to get up before dawn for the rest of your life. But something happened that changed Woojin’s prospects in life: his older sister was sent to a Correctional Facility for ‘Theft and Immoral Behavior’. At that time, when he was just thirteen, the knowledge that a world where people  _ didn’t _ farm shocked him. 

It wasn’t the best choice he could have made, even if at the time that he made it it seemed like the only option. In retrospect, Woojin wasn’t quite sure how he’d gotten away with everything that he did; his crimes probably amounted to theft, blackmail, cheating... 

His sister was fine now, but she probably hadn’t been when everything happened. And she had definitely not been in a place where that could excuse his behavior - she’d had no mind of her own, no power to question the what her little brother was asking her to do, and the documents he requested of her to steal. Her free will was practically erased by her time in the Correctional Facility, and Woojin felt like shit for having used that against her. Who would have thought that the demure and shy blonde secretary was secretly supplying her younger brother with information that would allow him to leave his home District; who would have thought that the child genius, who aced his exams and managed to leave the farming District, was nothing more than a dirty cheat and a liar, manipulating his way out of an unfavorable situation?

Yes, he sighed, he’d made a lot of mistakes in the past. Memorizing the right answers to the corporation-wide exam had been easy, figuring out the formula and wording in order to stand out from the crowd was easier still… it was the honesty, the morality that was hard. Going down the right path was hard; being a good and honest person was  _ hard. _ The thing about cheating is, Woojin recalled, that it only gets easier with time. There had seemingly been no limit to his success: he almost took maneuvered his way into a position in SM Industries, for god’s sake! He knew how people worked, how they thought, what they liked and what they didn’t like, he knew all the formulas and algorithms for cheating the precious systems that LIONS INC. worshipped. In the center of his web of lies he was an almighty wielder of words, a charismatic masterpiece, a god!

Woojin chuckled lightly at the memory. No one had been more surprised than him when, instead of skyrocketing to financial success, he took on a meagre Educator’s role at a Correctional Facility. It was less than glamorous. It was dull, the kids were loud and annoying and really hard to watch towards the end of their stay at the Facility, and he slowly lost touch with the rebellious spirit that once inhabited his body. Cheating and lying, he discovered, don’t feel very good. How good it feels, instead, to follow the rules and guidelines without second-guessing their applicability, to focus on the people around you instead of yourself, and to give. His sister, to this day, wonders what she ever did to make her brother fawn over her so much, as if he was repaying a debt… 

And now here he was, about to wreak havoc onto the very corporation whose rules he followed for so long. Being a good person, he knew now, has nothing to do with following rules, no, because following the rules is  _ easy _ . Being a good person is hard! It means making up your own mind about the world, it means choosing to help instead of watch and putting others before yourself. It means deciding what’s good and bad, and looking inside yourself to acknowledge the morality of your own actions, even if that’s hard -  _ especially _ if it’s hard! It means breaking free from a predetermined set of actions, from the system, and creating your own world with your own ideals. It means facing your fears and doing what’s right, even if it puts you in danger. Being a good person means sacrifice and honesty and courage-

A gust of wind blew dust in his face. 

Woojin shifted against the windowsill of the radio tower. He would never be able to get used to District 9, to this vast and dry emptiness without so much as a patch of grass in sight. He, who grew up in the luscious green hills and fields of the farming sector, was stranded in a concrete desert that offered no respite, no rest from the relentless beaming of the sun and the perpetual dryness of the air. He missed the cushioning softness of soil and grass, the dancing shift of crops in the breeze, the towering bodies of sunflower and maize, the rich smell of dirt and animals and  _ life _ . 

In this barren wasteland asphalt replaced the dirt under his feet and made his steps unnecessarily loud. The only things that shifted in the breeze were dreary plastic bags and the odd weed peeking through cracks in the dismal roads. Crumbling ruins of buildings stood taller than sunflower and maize ever could, and the only animal they’d see for miles and miles in this desolate wasteland was the odd bird perched atop the broken lamp posts. These days, without the rain to provide at least some form of relief, the air smelled of nothing but dust and death. 

District 9 was utterly, devastatingly lifeless.

The voices inside the building suddenly went quiet with a hush, and after a brief pause Woojin could hear Chris’ voice. They must have started, he thought. He exhaled and closed his eyes as, after another moment of silence, the boys inside erupted into cheers and laughter, hugging and congratulating each other. It all felt like a dream, like this was happening to someone else, not to him. But then again, he’d been through so many confusing situations in his life, questioned his own actions so often, and let his ambition dictate him that he might as well follow his heart this time, and embrace being here.

No more viewing yourself through a lense Woojin, he told himself. It’s time to stop second-guessing every decision; it’s time to do what you know is right. Anyway, the others must be waiting for him. And with that, he took one last look at the greyness of District 9 and headed inside.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry I've been gone for so long. I'm not satisfied with this chapter, but I don't really know how to fix that. It's short and a bit lackluster...
> 
> Bear in mind that this was written mostly before Woojin announced his departure from Stray Kids. For the purpose of this story, I will continue to treat Fanfic woojin like he is still part of Stray Kids. Let's please respect his choice and not hassle him about it...
> 
> What essentially happened was that I wrote about 2/3 of this, forgot about it for a solid few weeks, rediscovered it, had a massive writers block when trying to finish it and edit it, and finally gave up. Whatever, I'm posting it now. Sorry. 
> 
> On a positive note, Astronaut is fucking a d o r a b l e. it's such a cute song, i love it!


	7. With the cold creeping in

> | T i m e : 1 8 7 d a y s b e f o r e t h e d e c l a r a t i o n o f w a r 
> 
> | L o c a t i o n : S o m e w h e r e o u t s i d e D i s t r i c t 8 

Hyunjin stilled his breathing as best as he could, mimicking Felix who was sitting just in front of him. They didn’t have much time left; the perfect time for their little heist operation was approaching. In between the time that the trucker filled his vehicle with fuel and the time he got back into the driver’s seat, there was a short but virtually perfect window of time when they could sneak into the back of the truck undetected, nick some of the cargo, and make themselves scarce before the truck started its journey. 

He adjusted the facemask and sunglasses they both wore to avoid detection from cameras and retina-scanners. There it was! Throwing a quick look at Felix for affirmation, Hyunjin scuttled out of their hiding spot and busied himself with the lock on the back of the truck. He had to be careful and stay out of the camera’s view; they couldn’t risk discovery like this. Of course, that made lock-picking a lot harder than it should have been, but Hyunjin considered himself pretty much a tech genius, second only to Changbin (and Jisung, though he was loathe to admit it). He had this under control!

With a few more taps on the buttons, the digital lock hummed and came undone. Perfect! Felix was already making his way over to join Hyunjin, and together they entered the truck. From what he could see, Hyunjin made out boxes of red tin cans, probably beans or soup of some kind. There were loaves of sliced bread here, too, and pickles. Foregoing the bread (it was too perishable to keep and too unwieldy to transport), he began chucking the red cans, which  _ did _ turn out to be beans, into his open backpack. On the other side of the truck, Felix was filling his bag with pickled vegetables and beans. There were a few cans of fish in the back, which also vanished into his backpack; they could use some meat for once.

They should really head out by now… this was soon going to be too close for comfort. Hyunjin quickly zipped up his backpack and whispered a quick ‘let’s go’ over his shoulder to Felix, who he assumed would follow him as he jumped out of the truck and bolted back under the cover of ruble. The only issue, he realized as he panted behind a fallen wall, was that Felix wasn’t behind him.

_ Oh shit. _

His eyes scanned the fuel station: The truck, the trucker walking back, the pumps… the closed truck door! Felix must have realized that the driver was heading back and hidden behind the cargo! Of course, there was no need to panic. No need whatsoever. Everything was just fine. 

The trucks’ engine roared to life as Hyunjin watched, helplessly lost. 

_ Come on, Felix. Come on! _

The wheels slowly began to turn, and the exhaust spit fuel into the air. The truck’s door was slightly ajar, and there, in the dark, he could just about make out Felix’s face. 

_ What are you waiting for?! _

As if in slow motion, he saw Felix wave the universal ‘go away’ gesture at him. He couldn’t be serious! Hyunjin was just supposed to leave, to just forget about Felix and move on with his fucking life? No way!

_Come on Felix!!!_

For a second, he could have sworn he saw Felix nod. Their eyes stayed trained on each other as the truck pulled out of the fuel station and he saw his friend vanish from sight. 

_ Oh. _

_ Ok. _

Hyunjin took a deep breath. His ears were buzzing, and he slumped against the piece of concrete he was crouching behind. 

He couldn’t quite remember how long he’d just sat there, replaying the scene of Felix’s little wave over and over and over again in his head. He had half a mind to spring up from his hiding place and chase after the truck, but then again, there was no chance he’d ever catch up to it. Let’s be honest, what choice did he even have? There was no rescuing Felix now.

All that was left to do was go back. 

Felix was right! Hyunjin had to go back and tell the others about it, then they could plan something… And Felix was strong, much stronger than he looked, he surely knew how to take care of himself out there; all the younger had to do was sit tight until they found him.

Hyunjin desperately tried to ignore the hole in his gut that told him they might never find Felix, and if they ever did, it would take days, if not weeks… Who knows what might have happened to Felix by then… 

It was as if he was walking in a bubble. His legs automatically found the right path that would take him home, but his mind was somewhere else entirely. His eyes were taking in the surrounding landscape, but the images never registered. 

The sun was so bright; the sky was blue and clear. The gravel and dirt crunched under the soles of his shoes. It felt as though a thick blanket had settled on him, numbing some sounds but amplifying others. The sun was way too bright, his eyes seemingly more sensitive to light than before, and Hyunjin’s limbs felt strange and tingly, like syrup was flowing through his veins instead of blood. His mouth was dry and his thoughts seemed to have lost their usual speed.

What would he tell Chris? There was an instance, Hyunjin remembered, when he saw the two of them, Felix and Chris, sitting on the top of one of the buildings. It flashed before his eyes now; a moment seemingly so private that he’d felt uncomfortable just observing it without their knowledge. They were sat with their faces towards the sun and their legs dangling off the building, Chris’ arm around the younger’s shoulders and Felix leaning his head against the older, smiling softly. 

He wanted that. For a split second that turned into a moment and then into a minute, Hyunjin wondered what it was like to trust someone like that. To be certain, to have faith… To be more than family; he’ll probably never know. 

There was something in the air above the horizon. A bird maybe. It was hovering far above the ledge of a crumpled mall, like a small black dot.

Strange... Birds don’t act like that.

Hyunjin stopped in his tracks, squinting to get a closer look at this thing, and a faint sound reached his ears. Two sounds, to be precise: the first was a whirring, buzzing kind of noise, like a machine, and the second was a human voice, shouting out in the distance. Someone was calling his name. But who could be calling-

“GET DOWN!”

The breath left his lungs in a great big _ oomph _ as he hit the ground, barely avoiding biting his own tongue as the back of his head collided with the cold dirt, arms bracketing his sides and a heavy weight on top of him. He blinked.

“Felix?”

The teen on his chest lifted himself up and wiped his nose.

“Yeah?”

“... How did you get out?”

Felix didn’t answer. He sat up instead, still keeping low to the ground but at least letting go of the older. Only then did Hyunjin notice the state of him: His clothes were roughed up, his hair full of dirt, and there was a scrape on his left knee that was oozing blood where the jeans had ripped. Hands with red scrapes on their palms raised themselves to a split lip and gestured Hyunjin to remain silent. Despite the questioning look that he shot him.

“Stay low, be quiet, and don’t take your sunglasses off,” the younger whispered. “It’s a drone. I’ve been following it for a while now… Looks like it’s searching for something.”

“...Us?”

“Yeah, maybe.”

Hyunjin pressed his back against the concrete and his side into the dirt.

“What do we do?” he breathed, all too aware of his own thundering heartbeat.

“We stay out of sight… If it’s got an infrared camera we’re pretty much fucked, but whatever happened we need to conceal our faces and eyes. At least then we won’t be recognized.”

Of course. With the technology that he’d seen at LIONS INC., Hyunjin was almost certain that this drone was heat-sensor equipped. If that was the case, then they’d already been spotted, but he’ll be damned if whoever was flying this drone would find out any more information than that. So far, all these bastards knew was that there were two people outside District 8; they didn’t know who these people were, and if they suspected that it was the Facility runaways, then they had no proof to show for it.

The better question was, he thought as he pulled his jacket over his face and watched Felix do the same, how do we stop this thing? 

“It’s only a matter of time until it finds the radio tower,” Hyunjin said under his breath, feeling Felix shift next to him. The buzzing sound of the drone got louder as it approached.

“Yeah,” the younger agreed, “they probably traced our radio signal from all the broadcasts to here. Any chance you can hack this thing?”

There were a number of ways to hack a drone. You could either do it by interfering with its signal, but you’d need a pretty strong signal yourself (like a radio tower), or you could use a GPS spoof to intercept and feed it false directions and make it crash. You could also hijack the signal, but he only had a vague idea of how to do that. His programming course did  _ not _ prepare him for committing corporational crimes!

“Maybe… but wouldn’t it be easier to hide? If we interfere with the drone, they’ll probably realize that something is off, right?”

Felix was silent for a moment, before Hyunjin could feel him nodding his head.

“Mhm. Keep them guessing, then.”

Silence draped itself over the two of them like a heavy blanket, suffocating any sound that Hyunjin wanted to make and smoldering any movement before it could even be fulfilled. Even if he wanted to, he couldn’t move an inch; it felt like his limbs were disconnected from his body, that’s how long he’d been laying still. 

Was the drone still there? How would they even know? He wondered how much time had passed. Minutes, hours? It felt like forever… but then again, laying face down on the cold November ground could stretch any moment into a lifetime. The climate here was a lot more temperate than Hyunjin was used to, coming from District 5. The winters there were cruel, harsh and icy, with crystal blue skies that bore no warmth over the course of four months and snowfalls that made the roads icy and impossible to access for most vehicles. 

District 9 was a lot better in that aspect: they were located a bit farther south, on the opposite end of LIONS INC., and that meant warmer weather overall. According to Felix, the border with District 8 brought in warm winds from the sea; a gust of wind that blew eastwards and touched the outer parts of LIONS INC., creating the warm climate that Districts 2, 8, and apparently also 9 basked in. He was grateful… even with the radiator and everything, it got very cold at night around here. Stray Kids would be none if they had to face the cold of District 5 without any proper shelter or equipment to deal with nightly temperatures below freezing point. 

“Hey, Hyunjinnie,” Felix breathed out next to him, jolting his thoughts back into the present, “can you check if it’s still there?”

Of course! Hyunjin craned his neck and pulled the jacket off of his face to survey the sky above them for the hovering rectangle, when Felix’s hand forcefully yanked him back to the ground. 

“What are you doing?!” the freckled teen hissed. “Put your fucking sunglasses on first!”

Oh, right. Retinal recognition and all that. Feeling sheepish for needing a reminder like that, he scrambled to put the glasses over his eyes and looked up at the sky again. There didn’t seem to be a thing in sight! The sky was wide and light blue, cloudless and cold, a massive expanse of nothing, as vast and arid as the land beneath it. The fresh air tasted of snow, even though he was sure that snowfall would not come for another month or so. 

He pulled Felix up. It was time to go. 

*** * ***

The sun was beaming down on them, the rays making Jisung’s skin tingle in a pleasant contrast to the freezing cold that had gripped District 9 with the beginning of winter. He actually loved it… The layer of frost on everything in the morning, the clouds his breath formed, the way that the frozen soil crunched under his boots and the way that mist shrouded everything in a mysterious light in the morning. It was perfect: not cold enough for snow and ice, but not warm enough for dust and sweat either. 

He was glad that Changbin and him had managed to get the heater started. Though he doubted that they would face the harsh winters of District 5 here (they were on the opposite side of LIONS INC. and thus could expect pretty mild weather) a source of heat was still useful. Especially to cook food on…

Speaking of food, Felix and Hyunjin were due to return with another two bag-fulls of food from today’s raid in a few hours.With fondness he recalled the day they’d sat down and made the decision to begin raiding trucks going into LIONS INC.: Food had almost run out and they’d scavenged every edible scrap within a ten-mile radius, when Minho said that he ‘had to put his foot down’. It was funny, really, how annoyed he looked when he placed The Clan’s old map in front of them and pointed out the road systems used for Intercorporational transport. ‘Here’s what we do,’ he’d said, and then explained to them (as if they were little children) that they could simply steal from the food trucks going in and out of LIONS INC. 

‘I’ve heard enough from my dad,’ Minho had continued, ‘to know that corporations never send exactly accurate amounts of stuff like food. No one keeps a close eye on exactly how many fish or cans of soup LIONS INC. receives. And if it’s a little less, then they just assume some fell out during transport.’ It was, supposedly, a fool-proof plan. And who was Jisung to be sarcastic anyway? It worked all this time, hadn’t it? They send out two or three people every few days to the fuel station tunnels about eight miles outside of here, where they lie in wait for one of the delivery trucks to stop and recharge. It’s quick business: In and out, grab as much food as you can, and hightail back to your hiding place. He’d done it himself a couple of times. No big deal!

(Though he did have trouble with sneaking around. Jisung was not a quiet person by nature, no. Felix, Hyunjin, and surprisingly Jeongin, were much better at it than he was.)

He swung his feet in the air, letting them tangle off of the roof he was sitting on. There was nothing to do at the moment: They’d done another radio announcement just yesterday, a more extensive one with the whole ‘break free from their voices bla bla bla’ spiel, and it was a good idea to wait a few days in between such things. So what was a bored tech genius to do? He could go scavenging again, he thought… they didn’t need more clothes at the moment, but extra layers were never a bad thing. Plus, Seungmin was running low on spray paint… he could always use more. While Jisung and Changbin were focused on getting Stray Kids’ message out on the radio, Seungmin was spreading graffiti tags on the outer Districts.

With the map and journal from The Clan, they’d managed to figure out how to head into District 8, the one that their base was the closest to, and District 5, which was the next District northwards. District 8 was a factory District, with pretty much no one living there and only workers slaving away in the smelly fumes. Needless to say, that was Jisung’s least favourite District. District 5, the one that was closer to central LIONS INC. (the Districts were all arranged in a somewhat haphazard ring formation, with District 0 being the innermost and the rest sprawling outwards all dependent on the landscape they spanned) and actually housed some people during the night: the families of District 8 workers and those far below the poverty line. He’d only been there once, since most of the time Seungmin just preferred to go alone. 

Not that anyone would blame the rest of them for not coming with… Hyunjin and Changbin clearly didn’t want to be anywhere  _ near _ their home District, and Jisung once heard Chris describe the place as ‘District 2 but with concrete instead of water’. Naturally, neither of the former District 2 residents wanted to be reminded of their home either.

No one did! And that was fair! It was hard and sometimes painful to think of the life they’ve lived before all this. He knew that neither Changbin nor Hyunjin had very happy childhoods; Minho and Jeongin and most likely even Seungmin (though he never talked about it) had been caged by the overwhelming  _ poshness _ of District 0; Chris and Woojin still bore the scars of working in The Facility, and something happened in Felix’s life that he avoided telling anyone at all costs. In conclusion, all of them were pretty fucked up at this point. 

He’d include himself in this count, but in his own humble opinion, Jisung’s been fucked up since birth. And he was proud of that! If he hadn’t been fucked up he would not have landed in the Correctional Facility, which means he would not have met Minho and Changbin and Jeongin and Hyunjin and everyone else, and hadn’t ultimately escaped with the rest of Stray Kids to District 9. He wouldn’t have found his family, the people he loved and relied on most in the world. 

The whole ‘revolution’ thing wasn’t as important to him as it was to Woojin and Chris and Jeongin; as long as they all stuck together Jisung would be happy. They could live out here forever for all he cared! He wouldn’t mind. There was plenty of stuff to tinker with, he was with his friends, and no one was here to tell him what he should and shouldn’t do. It was pretty close of fucking paradise! He was happy, he was content. The constant nagging in the back of his head; the itch urging him to use his hands and create  _ something _ could be quieted whenever he felt like it… nothing was stopping him from going absolutely nuts with his creations. He could build another radio tower, he could build a solar panel, he could build a deathray that will obliterate all of humanity; the possibilities were endless! He was at his most powerful here, amongst the rubbish and debris, the death and desolation and endless concrete. At long last, after a lifetime of rules and what felt like an eternity of regulations, Jisung could be anyone and anything he wanted to be!

The euphoria gripped him like a hawk preying on a mouse, swooping down and snatching him up in its talons, carrying him over the vast desert that was District 9, the wind ruffling through his hair. He was so happy he could scream! And dance and laugh and cry out and  _ scream _ ; he didn’t even remember what caused him to be this happy! Maybe it was just the feeling of looking out over the buildings and roads that made up his domain, his sanctuary. His heart thundered on like a mighty beast galloping over a barren land, running just to feel the ground beneath its feel and the sun on its face. His vision momentarily exploded into bright colours and explosions across the night sky, of astronauts and shooting stars. He saw the nine of them, happy and smiling, radiating joy as they sat together on the rooftop roundabout; he could hear their laughter like a cheerful song. 

With an elated smile, he dangled his feet in the air, then heaved himself up with the help of his arms, and jumped off his perch. For a heartbeat’s moment he soared, flying through the air just like in his daydream, only to land on the cold ground with a dull thud, brief shocks from the impact running up his legs. He straightened himself out, adjusting the fleece jacket that had ridden up and exposed his lower back while he was sitting, pulling it down. 

Jisung was just about to head over and out into the rubble in search of some spray paint for Seungmin when he heard commotion in the living area of the radio tower: Felix and Hyunjin must have returned. He mentally shrugged, and turned his body towards the noise. Might as well check out what they brought with them. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HEYO!! I've been gone for a while, and I know that the last chapter was kinda shit, but here I am with something that I can be proud of! 
> 
> Quick thing: uni is fucking stressful and I don't always have time to write or even think about further plot. That said, have y'all SEEN Stray Kids in their new comeback?! KINGS!!!! I LOVE THEM SO MUCH OMG
> 
> I kinda picture District 9 to have a pretty moderate climate, and LIONS INC. is h u g e so there is definitely a difference in climate across districts. We've got some neat Jisung POV and a bit of action with Hyunjin and Felix. 
> 
> The Jisung POV was originally a lot darker and weirder, a bit more macabre, but then i realized he isn't like that and lightened it up. For fukc's sake, the original sentence was "The euphoria gripped him like a hawk preying on a mouse, swooping down and snatching him up in its talons, carrying him over the vast desert that was District 9, the wind ruffling through his hair and his blood dripping onto the ground below." That's just too much. I hope i captured that state of pure euphoria, though, even if it seemed a bit weird. 
> 
> We've also got a neat little segment with Hyunjin and Felix getting chased by a drone. I successfully avoided a writer's block by making quite a big leap in the timeline to where we have further conflict, because this story needs to continue on. OOf, what are tehy gonna do now that they have the government out and looking for them? Fight back of course! Hehehehe


	8. Lemonade

The smell of honey perforated the air. It was sweet and sticky, as if someone had distilled warm summer evenings and bottled them up in a mason jar. At first it was just a hint, a breeze, a slither of honey that Hyunjin smelled, but it soon grew and grew and grew until it overwhelmed his senses, smothering him in thick sweetness, drowning and swallowing him in sugary depths of molten gold afternoon sun. His limbs could barely move; he wanted to kick his legs and flail his arms and swim back to the surface, but he didn’t know where the surface was anymore. Everything was just golden and sweet.

Hyunjin opened his eyes. He was no longer sinking, but floating perfectly still, suspended in space and time and honey, unable to move, trapped as a fly in drop amber. It was quiet, and warm, like a late summer evening. Everything around Hyunjin was gold, and he couldn’t see his own limbs anymore. Maybe his eyes had stopped working, because no matter where he looked, whether he had them open or closed, all he could see was honey gold. Perfectly smooth without bubbles. The honey slid over his eardrums and he went deaf as well… the sounds that he could register were unlike anything he’d ever heard before, because the only way he could describe them was ‘sweet’. They sounded sweet and yellow and warm and not much like sounds at all. 

His lungs were burning with the breath he was holding, had been holding this entire time, and how long has it been anyway? Without thinking, Hyunjin exhaled; just to see if his breath would form bubbles in the warm golden mass he was encased in. It did not. His breath, it seemed, just vanished, swallowed up by the sticky sweetness just like everything else. His eyes lungs itched. 

He drew in a breath.

All at once, the honey came flooding in, like a rushing river, no, like a tsunami thundering and bearing down on a dam that did little to stop this onslaught of liquid so sweet it stung the back of his throat. It was everywhere: his nose, his throat, his lungs, it was under his tongue and in his eyes and his ears and he was trapped with nowhere to go, a mere insect caught in the sticky threads of a spider’s web. Regardless of what was happening to his body, Hyunjin was calm, calmer than he should ever be, given that he was drowning in an ocean of honey with no recollection of how he’d come here or how he’d ever get out. 

But that didn’t matter, he thought. The warm sweetness encased him, like evening sunlight cradling and lulling him to sleep, and he felt himself sink. Ah, he thought, so that’s where ‘Up’ is. He knew that, because right now he was going ‘Down’. As if seeing himself from an outside person’s perspective, he wondered for a moment why he wasn’t fighting harder against the inevitable pull downwards. He wasn’t usually one to give up without a struggle, he pondered. And yet here he was, Hwang Hyunjin, drowning slowly and inescapably in a mason jar of afternoon sunlight, limbs getting heavier by the second. ‘Huh,’ was his last thought, ‘I wonder why…’ 

Then, even his thoughts became too heavy to think, so he decided to postpone the thinking for a while and instead let the warm stickiness fill his brain and thoughts, too. The gold of the honey around him was slowly becoming darker and darker, but no less dull. It felt comfortable. Hyunjin was tired.

He closed his eyes. 

*** * ***

Hyunjin slowly felt his thoughts returning, his brain speeding up, and his consciousness stirring again. For a second, maybe an eternity, there had been nothing. Until there wasn’t. Did he die? Was he coming back to life? His eyes were still too heavy to open, but he wagered he’d soon have the strength to open them, too. He wasn’t breathing, but then again, he didn’t really need to. No idea why. He just didn’t need to. 

Among the warm, sticky not-sounds, his ears picked up something else, something equally warm and soft and comforting, but definitely a sound this time. It was far away, and muffled as if he was hearing it from underwater (wasn’t he?), but it was most certainly there. 

He strained his ears again. It was laughter, the laughter of sever boys, like a warm childhood memory that he couldn’t recognize but at the same time was incredibly, unspeakably familiar with. Hyunjin’s heart ached to go to that sound, to chase it, to make it his, and to take it and stuff it into his chest and keep it there forever. In that moment he wanted nothing more than to be there, in that scene of otherworldly happiness. 

Slowly he opened his eyes and looked around. He was still surrounded by the warm gold of the honey that had encased him like an alien womb maybe a moment, maybe a millennia ago. But something was definitely different. There, above him, he could see sunlight penetrating the stickiness and casting glimmers into the golden thickness, making them sparkle and shine in a spectacle that would surely have taken Hyunjin’s breath if he’d had any left in his honey-filled lungs. 

Experimentally, he gave his legs a little kick, just to see if he could move. A small kick with his left foot turned into a desperate kick with his right as the sounds of beckoningly beautiful laughter became louder and louder, and soon he was swimming up towards the light as fast as he could, his feet propelling his body upwards with stronger and stronger kicks. The honey was thick and hard to part; it didn’t want to let Hyunjin out of its sugary clutches and did its best to suck him right back down to the bottom, but he wouldn’t let it. No, he had to get to the source of the laughter, he  _ had _ to get to that sun, that happiness, had to see for himself that such beautiful sounds and feelings were even humanly possible. 

The farther he swam towards the sun, the more his lungs burned and the less clouded his senses became. His eyes picked up shadows above the honey, running figures and dancing sunlight, and the laughter that seemed so distant before now grew in volume until it filled his every pore, his very being, until he was nothing but laughter and joy and afternoon sunshine and lemonade himself. 

With a final gasp, he broke through the surface. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hewwo
> 
> We interrupt this program with a (very) short intermission, this time a little more abstract that usual. 
> 
> Points to those who can figure out what I'm doing with this passage. 
> 
> As always, please leave kudos and comments, please interact with the poor author who lives off of validation. please.


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